For Michel AGIE, Anthropologist and Study Director at EHESS, “Solidarity with the Ukrainian people, on the spot or exhilarating, is without comparison with the previous episodes” of migratory waves.
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Solidarity “with variable geometry”? While more than 870,000 civilians fled the war in Ukraine to neighboring countries, voices are rising to denounce a difference in treatment, media and political, the issue of refugees according to their origins. Until now, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war in which Russia is delivering in their country have received a huge amount of solidarity and are welcomed with open arms in Europe. But when Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans also fleemed local conflicts, European leaders mentioned a “migrant crisis”.
Cerains were also shocked. In France, the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, Jean-Louis Bourlanges (modem), made controversy by stating that the Ukrainians would be a “high quality immigration of which we can benefit”. The editorialist Christophe Barbier affirmed that there was “an obvious humanitarian gesture” to have with the Ukrainians, especially because they “are Europeans of culture”.
For Michel AGILE, anthropologist and student director at the School of Higher Social Sciences (EHESS), “Solidarity with the Ukrainian people, on the spot or exhilarating, is without comparison with the previous episodes” migratory waves. According to the Director of the Political Department of the Migration Convergences Institute, Coauthor of Babels, migrant condition surveys (essay points, 12.50 euros), this unpublished solidarity is explained by “diplomatic and geopolitical relations “proximity between Ukraine and Europe.
Several European countries, including France, were volunteered to welcome Ukrainian refugees. How to explain this opening posture?
Michel AGIE: First, we can rejoice to hear words of solidarity with respect to the refugee people and to observe a moment of European solidarity take shape in a few days with Ukraine.
For many, Ukraine is a European country and its position as a buffer country with Russia makes it an area on which all the attention of the European and global leaders is. The war takes place at the gates of Europe. Solidarity with the Ukrainian people, on the spot or exhilarating, is without comparison with the previous episodes. This must enlighten us on a general fact that geopolitical and diplomatic relations are decisive in recognizing refugee status.
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